I took the weekend off from this thread after probably starting the whole mess with my reply to Ben's post in the first place.

I seriously do apologize for losing my cool. I don't think I have ever done that before. I understand what can happen when a person in my position writes a front page column each week. Not everyone will like it and the nature of the forums is that people can jump right in and critique the article instantly. Most times that is great and leads to some lively discussion, but often people use that ability to completely trash the author in a very negative and nonconstructive way.

I overlook that stuff all the time and generally playfully poke fun at the member that did it. Everyone should get his/her chance to be heard. Sometimes people abuse that chance and the mods have to step in. I abused that for sure and Stu took the appropriate actions. Again, I will say I probably overreacted to Ben's post. But, it having followed both your's and Chad's, and it having pretty much the same negative content with what seemed like no constructive value what so ever, led to my ill conceived reply.

But the whole issue here is not that I reduced it to the flame war that we all took part in Sunday, but rather that you few do not speak for the majority here. Based on the positive responses here as well as the ones received via PM, lots of people enjoy this type of thing. You know there are people here that like to read about the people in our community right?

And let's talk about that. How do you come to the conclusion that I was separating those who are with those who are not? My intention was simply to let the community here get to know the guys that put on the VsRealms team shirts. How did it then become name dropping, buddy bolstering, secret handshake bull####? I would love to see this grow into a "Get to Know the Guys in the Community" weekly column. But it has to start somewhere and interviewing the team seems like a good start.

I am going to continue these interviews because I think a lot of people like them. If you are not one of them, that is fine. You'll know in the opening paragraph what it will be and you can go read something else.
________
Vaporizers

Dave



Ok I remembered this wrong. I'm leaving my original response so you can see I'm not hiding it.

Dave's response was available in my reply to him. Dave's response was actually talking about his disbelief that I got my posting capabilities taken away on Kerg's Yahoo list.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is sooooo not you.

In fact, it is in direct opposition of your PM to me.

Two reasons as to why I don't now trot out that PM.

1. PM's are just that Private Messages.
2. Even if I chose to violate that privacy, I can't as I've deleted the PM.

First of all. All of us who paid for it wear the t-shirts. We identify each other both locally and at tourney by the t-shirts. The community represents the community. The team represents the team.

Since you asked about specifics, I'd be happy to offer my particular answer.

We can start with what was in the article.

"The community here is great, and some of the deck ideas we play on the Pro Circuit come right out of the threads that you guys create."

Hmm..thanks for mentioning the community, but in the greater context of the community, what has the team actually done for the community? Wouldn't it seem to make sense to start with the community and work towards the team as a -incredibly- small sample of the community as a whole? (See my earlier post for more about that)

"How were they picked? Well, I am sure a lot of it had to with how much fun we had hanging out with Majestic and CaptainCarl, and realizing that good people can still win big money."

This immediately sets the tone that the people on the team were picked because 1 - You had fun hanging out with them and 2 - Because they were winners. Neither of which, arguably, has much to do with the vsrealms community as a whole.

Now, what was missing?

There isn't a single mention of vsrealms anywhere in the interview. Nothing. No mention of when ROb joined vsrealms, how often he's on, how often he posts, his favorite threads, nothing.

This article could have just as well been posted on metagame or vsuniverse or any other site. There is nothing at all in the interview that links it back to the community.

Is my point a bit clearer? If this is about the team, then don't patronize by saying they represent the community. Just say 'here's a team that I'm on that has some people that post once in a while on vsrealms (along with posting on other sites and writing articles on other sites).

If it's about the community, then -make- it about the community.

I know this was to GDE, but I'd be happy to put my money where my mouth is on this one. Being an english major, published writer, former editor and whatnot, I'd be happy to write up articles and interviews about the vsrealms community.

I tend to ramble when I write anything. This board surely doesn't need another poorly written boring article.

I'm getting warned for posting valid observations, what makes you think if I could write that I would take the time to?

Where was this mentioned? I might have selective vision, but I saw this nowhere.

As I said before, this interview thing was meant mostly for all the newer members that have joined. There are 5000+ members now. So a lot of them were not around when the whole team was selected.

Just because I am focusing on the team right now, doesn't mean they are greater than the community. I link to other member's post all the time in my articles. Why now has this suddenly turned into some kind of class distinction simply because they are pro players?

The nature of this website is that it is forum driven. Most of the content doesn't come from the 2-3 front page articles a week, but from the daily posts by you guys in the other forums. I would bet that the majority of the people that visit here, come solely for that.

Why does something even have to be deemed not worthy for the front page? You guys have turned the front page into something that should the word of God or something. It is nothing more than an avenue to funnel you guys to the forums. Yes, sometimes there are UDE announcements and other related things that get put there for whatever reason, but for the most part it is no different from any other place on the website.
________
Asian Tubes

Good call ther. In fact the "front page" system is nothing special. It is just that Typhon has set the portal to display the latest messages posted in a particular forum - that forum being news and announcements. It is not because the stuff posted is ground breaking stuff. It is just the most recently posted articles in a particular forum.

GDE, as for writing - I was just trying to offer a solution to your issue of article quality.

CFBRunner - you should do that. If you write something, post it in the articles section so I can read it. Id be interested in hearing what you have to say about a variety of vs topics, including your awesome avatar :P

It came out of this comment: Rob Leander (VsMaster) might not be the most well-known person on the team

That was how I interpreted this sentence. I'm willing to admit that I could have read too much into it, however.


The article makes the distinction. See my previous post about that.

As for if it belongs on the front page, I honestly don't care. That's an administrative and editorial call.

And as another comment, I truly did want my criticism to be constructive. I didn't put much effort into the first posts, and for that, I apologize. But I think there should be some improvement in these articles if the goal is to promote the vsrealms community and not simply the RW team.

I am confused by this. Is this about my PM to you about getting kicked off Kergy's list for a week? Or to something else?
________
Sexy Girls

I just got done reading the last 112 posts, and I am actually sick to my stomach. I joke about wanting to boil my eyeballs off (especially in response to his greatness, En-Kur's posts regarding old elephant skins rugs...I mean Aunt May and Madame Web), but I am actually made sick by this forum.

The article itself was okay, but I didn't care for it. I would've preferred if En-Kur wrote 2 or 3 questions and answers for all of the Team RW in one article, but, hey whatever. I also don't know if I'm really "represented" by Team RW, but that's a slip, I'll let it slide.

Then, the posts. I see stu's voice everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It's not 30 or 45 posts in until stu comes out and says that he deleted a flame war; before that, I was honestly baffled, and assuming that stu was just bored.

Next, I proceed to see an argument carried out for a very long time where people seem more to be responding quickly than actually constructing solid arguments, and more flaming, but this time sans major editing.

Finally, I hear Kamiza's suggestion of having a guest writer for vsrealms.com. I don't think you guys post something of your own EVERY day on the news/front page thing, and if you guys could have a random person take turns editing an article submitted by a community member, that would be awesome! You could keep it up and advertise it in the weekly article, and have a place to send it and everything! In fact, after 107 laborous posts, the first one that I truly enjoyed was Kamiza's.

So, thank you all, and I only hope that this post doesn't categorize me as an "angry young man". I don't know if I could handle that level of criticism.

I don't think I intimated that I could write a well-thought out article that would be of interest of the majority of the community.

Based on the response that Stu has fostered in the community that I'm "free game", I doubt the response would be favorable if I were to write the greatest article in the history of humankind.

I'm not a writer. Therefore, no articles from me.

The part below the ----- was a quick reply that was factually incorrect. I tried to correct that by posting the part above the ----.


I didn't want to edit the post to hide my mistake. That might be the reason the post is odder than usual.

I was guilty of what I sometimes accuse you guys of. I interpreted your post incorrectly.

I kind of took it as a put up or shutup post.

Please believe me that if I felt I could write a good article that I would. As I'm sure you've seen, I'm not shy.